Stone
by Ravenclaw42
Summary: A brief study of Sirrus' imprisonment in Spire, especially the early years. A man of such intelligence can easily hide his hopelessness behind cold bars of science and pragmatism. Oneshot.


Author's Note: Playing Revelation now, I find myself remembering just how awesome the crazy brothers were from the original Myst. The effects of the two different prison worlds on the two different characters are fascinating. So here's my little homage to Sirrus, who's killed me twice now, the bugger. :is fond of him anyway:

Some facts regarding the Art are hazy and probably wrong. I don't do that much research for one-page ficlets, so sue me. Just don't look too close.

----------

**Stone**

The only times Sirrus truly believed he could escape were during the first and last years of his imprisonment. His journals said otherwise, the clean, neat handwriting betraying none of his inner doubt, facts and figures always pointing to a plan, a future, a shred of hope. But Sirrus had never been one for useless sentiments, and his journals said nothing about the workings of his heart, only his mind.

For the first year, Sirrus explored with a vengeance. He excavated solid stone with only a penknife and his own bare hands; he climbed and crawled, abandoning dignity for the sake of information; he performed death-defying feats in utter solitude, feats he could hardly bear to think about in later years lest latent terror interrupt the calm machinations of his scientific mind. Back then, he had been driven. Driven by belief in a single, unquestionable absolute: this world must contain a Linking Book. It was the Law. Atrus himself had taught that to Sirrus and his brother, exactly as it had been taught to Atrus by his own father Gehn. All Ages written must immediately be fitted with their own Linking Book.

This is law. Unquestionable. Absolute.

For an Age to contain no Linking Book was unthinkable.

And so the more Sirrus pondered the unthinkable and questioned the unquestionable, the more his anger grew, white-hot anger that left him dazed and unfocused, anger fueled by isolation. He raged against the world that now smothered him. Raged against the father who had sent him here. He wanted to burn things, wanted himself to burn if it would be any relief, wanted to burn his father the way Atrus had burned the book that had brought him here.

The mediocrity of this unassuming world was a greater torment than anything else, even the isolation. For one as accustomed to art and finery as Sirrus, the ambiguous surroundings were ubearable. The temperature was always perfect; storms never passed through the middle cloud layer, leaving the air absolutely still at all times; food was plentiful and tasteless; the light was constant and colorless and just bright enough; the stonework, even the delicately patterned stonework and the magnificent arches, were all identical and repetitive. There was no night and no day, no true sky and no true ground here in the his floating stronghold. Only a void, both above and below, and the moon watching over it all.

He shattered glass to break the monotony, collapsed walls and shredded vines and ultimately created beauty out of chaos. It soothed his anger a little. Only a little.

After the first year he finally understood that he could not leave, that sheer anger and speed and brute determination could not get him out of this hellish place. He would have to slow down, take a deep breath, and do what he was best at: think.

But with the death of his anger came also the death of his hope. The language of his journals calmed, his handwriting became less frantic, but their message remained the same: _I will find a way out._ And yet, even as he wrote the words, Sirrus couldn't bring himself to believe them. Not truly. Not in the same bright, violent way he'd believed them for the past year.

In his first year in Spire, Sirrus slept in corners and on mounds of torn-down vines, sometimes even in the elevator. He shunned the only bed in the place, a thing of stone and ridges that would only bring pain.

But the year passed, the anger faded and his hate became cold. And from that time forth he slept on the stone slab, sometimes imagining himself dead, and always waking to a terrible stiff pain in his entire body.

And with each waking he smiled grimly, and rose, stretching, for another day of work.


End file.
